Oct 1960

equipment for aircraft, electronic timing devices for electric cookers, sparking plugs, and even anti-freeze. And so it can be seen that the company have a very wide range of products.

As we were shown in one section of this exhibition, illustrating the history of Smith's, this vast business concern grew up from a watchmaker's shop founded in 1851 in the Newington Causeway in London, by a watchmaker named Samuel Smith. From this tiny shop, employing some half-a-dozen craftsmen and apprentices manufacturing watches by hand, the business has expanded into the great concern it is now, employing 20,000 workers. Naturally, the firm undertake far too much to be contained in one factory. In fact there are over 20 of them, as far apart as Wishaw in Scotland, Ystradgynlais in Wales, and Basingstoke in England, each one producing a different line of goods. The factory we visited was the instrument division, producing all types of gauges and meters, for cars in particular.

When it came to lunchtime, we were escorted to one of the works canteens for a very enjoyable meal. As soon as this was over, we set off to tour the main factory in groups of five, each one under the guidance of a student apprentice. We saw the whole process from the extremely noisy stamping and milling, through the assembly, to the final graduation and packing of the individual instruments. I have not sufficient time to go into details of the whole process, but there were one or two points which made a particular impression upon me.

The first was the type of work done by the majority of the workers.

As the factory produces precision instruments, most of the work is done by women working at individual benches, each doing one particular job, such as assembling two parts or graduating the instruments. One would have thought that the monotony and strain of repeatedly doing the same finicky little job would have tended to make the women lose concentration and become inefficient. But our guide explained that each person is relieved for about 10 minutes every hour, to relax and rest, and they soon came to do the work automatically.

One rather interesting process was the printing of the dials. This is done with a hemispherical gelatine stamp which works on roughly the reverse principle of the clerk's official rubber stamp. The inscription is engraved on a special metal plate, and not raised on the stamp. Paint is poured on the plate, which is then scraped clean with a palette-knife, leaving a deposit in the engraved letters. The stamp is stamped on the engraving and then on the dial, transferring the inscription on to it. This is the basic principle, but variations are needed for such peculiarities as awkwardly shaped dial-fronts.

After our tour of the factory we were given afternoon tea and we had a chance to chat with our guides about their training. They were 37